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Obama: U.S. to maintain troop levels in Afghanistan through 2015
U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani (L) after their joint news conference at the White House in Washington, March 24, 2015. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton
24/03/2015
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday granted Afghan requests to slow the drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and said he would maintain a force of 9,800 through the end of 2015 while sticking to a 2017 exit plan.
Obama said the speed of the reduction in 2016 would be established later this year and the goal remained to consolidate U.S. forces in the country to a presence at the Kabul embassy at the end of 2016.
Under a previous plan U.S. forces were to have been cut to about half of the current level of just under 10,000 by the end of 2015. But U.S. officials said improved relations with Afghan leaders contributed to a revision of the plan.
The change reflected confidence in the new administration of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who became his country's leader last year and enjoys better relations with Washington than his predecessor, Hamid Karzai.
"It was my assessment as commander in chief that it made sense for us to provide a few extra months for us to be able to help on things like logistics," Obama said during a joint news conference with Ghani at the White House.
"The date for us to have completed our drawdown will not change," he said. "Providing this additional timeframe during this fighting season for us to be able to help the Afghan security forces succeed is well worth it."
Ghani said the extension of current U.S. troop levels through the end of this year would be used to speed up reforms allowing Afghan forces, who have taken over responsibility for national security, to be better trained and equipped.
He also noted that the departure of tens of thousands of NATO troops in the last few years had not led to his country's collapse in the face of attacks by Taliban and other militants.
Some U.S. lawmakers had also called for a slower drawdown of troop levels. U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry, a Republican who leads the House of RepresentativesArmed Services Committee, said the decision announced on Tuesday was "appropriate."
"Iraq has shown us the consequences of leaving a fragile ally too early," he said in a statement. "The bottom line is that our own security is at stake."
A senior U.S. official told Reuters last week the U.S. military bases in Kandahar and Jalalabad were likely to remain open beyond the end of 2015.
(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Patricia Zengerle, and Julia Edwards; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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